just another ex-jazz-musician/proto-rapper/Jersey-Irish-poet-actor/print-junkie/film-raptor/beat-hipster-"white Negro"-rhapsodizer/ex-hippie-punk-'60s-radical-organizer's take on all things cultural, political, spiritual & aggrandizing

Sunday, August 16, 2009

LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT

If you’re a sixty-five year old man, exhausted from an extremely long plane trip, using a cane and standing in your own home but exasperated at having been unable to locate your keys and forcing the door open, and you grow impatient with a policeman who doubts you’re telling the truth about being in your own home and thinks you might be a sixty-five-year old burglar who chose to try and break in the front door of a house in broad daylight while leaning on a cane, you deserve to be handcuffed and taken to jail and booked for “disorderly conduct.” Oh, and you just happen to be African American or “black” as society still sees things.

But if you’re a European-American, or “white” as society calls it, and you scream at the top of your lungs insults and threats and intimidation at a Congressperson or Senator, and disrupt a town hall meeting he or she is trying to conduct and make it impossible for other citizens to be heard, let alone the Senator or Congressperson, and half or more, maybe all, of what you’re screaming is lies and invective, you’re some kind of rightwing hero or heroine and the police should let you rave on unobstructed and do?

Isn’t that what we used to call the old double standard.

[For the most reasoned discussion of the town hall protests I've seen so far, check out this Bill Moyers show.]

13 comments:

Bill Moyer is a loony leftie whose ratings match his reasoning. The revelation is not the Professor with the cane vs. the policeman. It is the stupidity of the president for calling the Cambridge Police department stupid. Obama's conviction that the black man was right and the white policeman was obviously wrong, revealed his sympathy for his wacko so called reverends Wright and Farrahkahn. That is shocking for folks that thought the Obamasiaha was post racial and call into question all the "Hope and Change" aspirations that were invested in him.

There seems to be credible evidence mounting that right wing radio hosts; notably Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly are receiving program funding from extremist militia groups and terrorist sponsored organizations. In the spirit of full disclosure, one would wonder why they are not opening their books for review.

SASKATOON — The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says this country's health-care system is sick and doctors need to develop a plan to cure it.

Dr. Anne Doig says patients are getting less than optimal care and she adds that physicians from across the country - who will gather in Saskatoon on Sunday for their annual meeting - recognize that changes must be made.

"We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize," Doing said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

"We know that there must be change," she said. "We're all running flat out, we're all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands."

The pitch for change at the conference is to start with a presentation from Dr. Robert Ouellet, the current president of the CMA, who has said there's a critical need to make Canada's health-care system patient-centred. He will present details from his fact-finding trip to Europe in January, where he met with health groups in England, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands and France.

His thoughts on the issue are already clear. Ouellet has been saying since his return that "a health-care revolution has passed us by," that it's possible to make wait lists disappear while maintaining universal coverage and "that competition should be welcomed, not feared."

In other words, Ouellet believes there could be a role for private health-care delivery within the public system.

It looks like I made it on Obama's email list. That is so special in a Democracy. I assume I made it because I emailed the "Snitch Line" my displeasure with their programs.---------------------------------

This is probably one of the longest emails I’ve ever sent, but it could be the most important.

Across the country we are seeing vigorous debate about health insurance reform. Unfortunately, some of the old tactics we know so well are back — even the viral emails that fly unchecked and under the radar, spreading all sorts of lies and distortions.

As President Obama said at the town hall in New Hampshire, “where we do disagree, let's disagree over things that are real, not these wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that's actually been proposed.”

So let’s start a chain email of our own. At the end of my email, you’ll find a lot of information about health insurance reform, distilled into 8 ways reform provides security and stability to those with or without coverage, 8 common myths about reform and 8 reasons we need health insurance reform now.

Right now, someone you know probably has a question about reform that could be answered by what’s below. So what are you waiting for? Forward this email.

Thanks, David

David Axelrod Senior Adviser to the President

P.S. We launched www.WhiteHouse.gov/realitycheck this week to knock down the rumors and lies that are floating around the internet. You can find the information below, and much more, there. For example, we've just added a video of Nancy-Ann DeParle from our Health Reform Office tackling a viral email head on. Check it out:

Interesting concept, compare health care in the UK for dogs (no government-run health care) vs. humans. The rambling sometimes funny article in the Wall St. Journal begins by pointing out:As a British dog, you get to choose (through an intermediary, I admit) your veterinarian. If you don’t like him, you can pick up your leash and go elsewhere, that very day if necessary. Any vet will see you straight away, there is no delay in such investigations as you may need, and treatment is immediate. There are no waiting lists for dogs, no operations postponed because something more important has come up, no appalling stories of dogs being made to wait for years because other dogs—or hamsters—come first.

The worst instance of the double standard was the moron with a gun at a recent Obama appearance. Like that sort of thing would have been tolerated under Bushcheney. Again, the corporate media bear some blame here---they give all this legitimizing coverage to the "birthers" and townhall screamers, while expending no real energy investigating who these anti-Americans actually are.yrs,TP

(PS--I don't read his comments, but I am curious as to why you allow "Jim" to dominate the comments section on your blog with these his customary series of posts.)

Sadly, the insurance companies and the far-right have won this battle already. Their lies, half-truths, fear mongering, hate talk have blinded the public to the truth of the matter - America's health care system is in trouble, America's health future is in trouble and we are all going to pay the price. I talk to Canadians fairly often - they like their health care - I have friends in the UK - again not much in the way of complaints - but here - I have had to battle my insurance company several times after they have denied my doctor's prescriptions - or tests. And, blue cross blue shield of Michigan wants to raise their rates by an average of 22% in October. Like I said, we pay.

Canada apparently has supply problems. The US has high quality but high cost. Simple non radical solutions include opening every state to cross border competition, cap medical mal practice suits thus reducing exhorbitant costs of mal practice insurance and defensive medicine, end government mandate of types of policies and allow high to very high deductable low cost policies, allow tax deductable medical accounts, make medical insurance portable, make it easy for people to join groups, stop government from dictating compensation levels for medical personnel since competitive markets usually do a better job and will incentivize more qualified people to enter the profession.---------------------------------Thousands of surgeries may be cut in Metro Vancouver, leaked paper reveals

BY DARAH HANSEN, VANCOUVER SUNAUGUST 10, 2009 VANCOUVER — Vancouver patients needing neurosurgery, treatment for vascular diseases and other medically necessary procedures can expect to wait longer for care, NDP health critic Adrian Dix said Monday.Dix said a Vancouver Coastal Health Authority document shows it is considering chopping more than 6,000 surgeries in an effort to make up for a dramatic budgetary shortfall that could reach $200 million.“This hasn’t been announced by the health authority … but these cuts are coming,” Dix said, citing figures gleaned from a leaked executive summary of “proposed VCH surgical reductions.”The health authority confirmed the document is genuine, but said it represents ideas only.“It is a planning document. It has not been approved or implemented,” said spokeswoman Anna Marie D’Angelo.